This invention relates to a computer system for and a method for producing a graphical representation of a musical work. In particular, this invention relates to a system and method for graphically illustrating the tones, harmonies, tonalities and other characteristics of a musical work.
Development of the new art and science of harmonic progression and tonal modulation during the evolution of Western musical culture from the Renaissance to the Baroque stylistic era introduced a third dimension into music, in much the same way that perspective was introduced in the history of visual art-works shortly before the time in question. Thus, there is a direct parallel between the musical achievements of composers Like da Rore, Marenzio, Gesualdo and Monteverdi on the one hand, and those of painters and architects such as Leon Battista Alberti, Brunelleschi, Leonardo and Piero delia Francesca on the other. The art of music which held sway from Monteverdi to Wagner is called xe2x80x9ctonal music,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9ctonalityxe2x80x9d being the quality which distinguishes it from earlier compositions, or from some of those of the present century. Tonality relates to loyalty to a tonic note and xe2x80x9chome key.xe2x80x9d The art of changing from one tonality to another is called xe2x80x9cmodulation.xe2x80x9d The present invention visually illustrates the ways in which tonality serves as a third dimension in music, which had tended to seem two-dimensional until about the end of the Renaissance. Similarly, paintings and drawings had been mainly two-dimensional until the appearance of Alberti""s treatises, De picture praestantissima, in 1435, and Della pittura (1436). In music, as in painting and drawing, the new dimension added depth and a sense of reality to the art-form.
Generally, a musical work has a plurality of sounds that occur as a function of time. Each of these sounds can be described in terms of its musical characteristics, such as tone, harmony and tonality. A tone or melodic note is defined as a musical sound of a definite pitch. A harmony is a simultaneous combination of sounds and may in some instances be referred to as a chord. A tonality of a musical work is its central tone or key, and melody refers to the succession of tones.
One method of determining a tone, a harmony or a tonality of a musical work is to train a person to be able to identify them aurally. This method involves one of the physical senses, hearing. Another method of determining the characteristics of a musical work is to use conventional sheet music in which each tone is represented by a note. This method involves the use of two senses, sight and hearing. However, sheet music provides a two-dimensional depiction of music.
A shortcoming of the generally known methods and systems for recording and studying music is their failure to communicate the essential characteristics of a musical work in a manner that it is readily understandable by a student. A primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved musical visualization system that makes complex musical compositions more understandable to a student.
An improved method and system for more readily determining the various characteristics of a musical work is provided by this invention. This improved method and system provides a graphical representation of a musical work so that qualities of a musical work, such as tone, tonality and harmony, can readily be determined. Included within the graphical representation of a musical work may be a graph of the tones, harmonies and tonalities as a function of time. This graph may also be color coded to depict the harmony, tone and tonality of the sounds of a musical work. These graphical representations may be referred to as xe2x80x9caudiographsxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9csoundscapes.xe2x80x9d
This disclosure provides a description of a system utilized to build the geometric representation of a musical work, along with the method of controlling various visual effects based on properties of the musical work. The characteristics of a musical work are represented as a number of voices. Each voice can store a melodic voice, the harmony, tonality, dynamic information, etc. An application has been developed for entering this data in a convenient manner. The characteristics are read by the visualization software at startup, and a geometric database is constructed using some of the voice information while other voices are utilized to influence factors during playback. The composition can either be viewed in real time or one frame at a time (for recording to videotape or generating multimedia movies).
According to a preferred embodiment of this invention, a graphical representation of a musical work is created that appears as a three dimensional illustration of a musical work. This method includes selecting a musical work and determining its musical characteristics. The characteristics may include the tones, the harmonies and the tonalities as they occur as a function of time. These musical characteristics may be numerically coded and stored in a programmable computer memory, such as a computer disk cartridge or a permanently installed computer memory. After the musical characteristics are stored on a programmable computer memory, the memory can be used to control a computer to create a graphical representation of the musical work.
Each sound in a musical work typically has a tone, a harmony and a tonality. A scaled numeric table that assigns a scaled numeric value to the tones, harmonies and the tonalities of a musical work can be created. Each sound in the musical work can then be assigned a tonal value, a harmony value and a tonality value corresponding to its scaled table value. These assigned values can be inputted into the memory of a computer or stored on a computer disk and used to control a computer, as mentioned above, to create a graphical representation of a musical work.
According to one aspect of this invention, the graphical representation created by the computer from the programmable memory includes a graph that has three axes; one axis is time, another is tone and the third is harmony. As mentioned above, each of the assigned values of tone, harmony and tonality for each sound of a musical work can be stored as a function of time on a programmable computer memory. Each of these values can be graphed as coordinates by the computer to form the graphical depiction of a musical work. In a preferred embodiment of this invention, the graph appears as a three dimensional depiction of a musical work.
In order to create this three dimensional illustration of a musical work, a system generally includes a computer and a programmable memory storage device containing the musical characteristics that can be used to control the computer. The computer may have a display to display the graph produced by the microprocessor of the computer. In addition, the computer may have an audible playing device for playing the music as it is being graphically depicted as a function of time. In a preferred embodiment of this invention, the playing device plays the music in synchronism with the graph.
In addition to creating a scaled numeric table corresponding to the coordinates on the graph, a scaled numeric color table can also be created. In this table each tone, harmony and tonality is assigned a color. The sounds of a musical work can then be assigned a numeric tonal color value, harmonic color value and tonality color value. These numeric color values can be inputted into a computer or stored on a computer programmable memory. The memory can then control the microprocessor to color the graphical representation depicted above according to the assigned color values.
Other features of the present invention are described below.